Opera Epiclese, Top Floor.
As Mr. King stepped into his luxurious suite, before he even had a chance to sit down and ponder how to ask Neuvillette for "demolition compensation," there was a knock at the door.
The rhythm of this knock carried a familiar, eager tone, despite attempts to maintain decorum.
"Mr. Bodyguard! Mr. King! Are you back?"
It was Furina.
Mr. King sighed and opened the door.
Outside, Furina was looking up, her heterochromatic eyes filled with worry and unconcealed excitement.
"Mr. King! Are you alright? I heard that sound! It was so loud! All of Fontaine heard it! Did you encounter a very powerful enemy? Are you hurt?"
Furina circled Mr. King, like a kitten checking if its owner was unharmed.
Mr. King didn't even have a speck of dust on him.
"I'm fine."
"That's good! That's good!"
Furina patted her chest, relieved, then her eyes lit up again, sparkling with gossip: "Then... the enemy? Did you scare him away? Or... ah!"
She suddenly covered her mouth, as if a terrifying and exciting possibility had occurred to her, and lowered her voice, asking mysteriously, "Could it be... you 'dealt with' him?"
Mr. King looked at her, both scared and eager to hear, feeling a bit speechless.
"I didn't kill him." He waved his hand and added, "But I hit a bit hard, and the shop collapsed."
"Shop? What shop?"
Furina was taken aback.
"Lilianes Bakery."
"Ah! That delicious dessert shop!" Furina was clearly a regular. She then reacted, waving her small hand dismissively: "If it collapsed, it collapsed! It's that shop's honor to witness Mr. King's heroic combat! As for the damages, Mr. King doesn't need to worry; Neuvillette will handle the compensation, and the Opera Epiclese will take full responsibility!"
She said this with absolute certainty, with a touch of the bravado that says, "I have money, my man, I'll pay."
Mr. King: "..."
What's with this sudden flutter in my heart?
"Oh, right," Furina suddenly remembered something, her expression becoming subtle, "What about... that white flying creature? Paimon? Why didn't you bring her back? Could it be..."
Her gaze darted behind Mr. King, not seeing the small white figure, and her heart sank.
Did the battle affect her? Or was it... "I let her go."
"Let... let her go?" Furina's eyes widened. "Why? Doesn't she still have twenty-nine days..."
"Because she looked quite pitiful."
After Mr. King's words, the room was silent for a few seconds.
Furina's beautiful heterochromatic eyes blinked, then blinked again, seemingly processing this information.
Let her go?
That small white flying creature, the "culprit" she personally sentenced, Neuvillette solemnly arranged, and used to display Mr. King's prestige and status... just... let go?
"Because she looked quite pitiful." — That's what Mr. King said.
An indescribable emotion, like sparkling wine that had been shaken, gurgled up from the bottom of Furina's heart.
A little sour, a little full, and a little inexplicably wronged.
She pouted, her slender eyelashes lowered, hiding a fleeting hint of disappointment in her eyes.
"Oh..."
Furina drew out her words, her voice sounding muffled: "If she's released, then so be it... anyway, she's just an insignificant little fellow."
"Mr. King is truly gentle."
Furina mumbled, her tone subtle, neither exactly praise nor anything else.
She was like a cat whose treat had been snatched by a puppy, sitting huffily on the velvet sofa in Mr. King's room, arms crossed, lips pressed into a straight line, her heterochromatic eyes occasionally glancing at Mr. King, filled with "I don't understand" and "You'd better explain."
Mr. King looked at Furina's shocked expression, as if he had done something "outrageous," feeling a little helpless but also somewhat amused.
This Hydro Archon, sometimes truly is childish.
"Laws are dead, people are living."
He said this casually, but it made Furina pause.
Furina blinked, leaned closer, and asked with curiosity in her voice, "King... you're actually a really good person, aren't you?"
"Thump."
A faint, yet unusually majestic heartbeat, suddenly echoed in the quiet room.
Furina was startled, thinking she had said something wrong again and angered the fontaines strongest man.
Mr. King stiffened slightly.
Gentle? Him? Don't be ridiculous!
This sudden "good person" card caught him off guard, and the emperor engine almost went out of control again.
Mr. King's face was taut as he turned his head to look out the window, his back to Furina, and spat out two stiff words: "No."
To Furina, this reaction was practically a confession!
She looked at Mr. King's deliberately cold profile, and her heart grew even more certain.
Thinking of this, Furina's heart couldn't help but beat a little faster.
What's with this sudden flutter in my heart?
"Alright, alright, if you say no, then it's no."
Furina's lips curved into a smile; she didn't press further, and her mood inexplicably improved.
With her hands behind her back, she paced two steps in the room, her skirt swaying lightly: "Since Mr. King is fine, I won't bother you anymore! Neuvillette will handle the compensation, so don't worry!"
She reached the door, then turned back and winked at Mr. King: "There's a banquet at the Opera Epiclese tonight, to celebrate... um, to celebrate your joining the Fontaine family! You're the guest of honor, so you must come!"
After speaking, Furina felt a little shy and prepared to make her escape.
She gripped the doorknob, about to pull it open, but her fingertips met with a heavy resistance.
She pulled a little harder, surprised—
"Crash—!!!"
As soon as the door opened a crack, the mountain of "obstacles" piled outside lost their support and poured in like an avalanche!
"Whoa!"
Furina only had time to let out a cry of surprise before she was buried under a pile of gifts, with only a tuft of blue hair sticking up and a white-gloved hand stubbornly reaching out from the gift pile, swaying weakly in the air.
Mr. King: "..."
He silently watched the sudden "mountain of gifts" before him, and the struggling hand at its base, momentarily unable to react.
What act was this now?
"W-what is this...?"
Furina struggled, poking her head out from a pile of ribbons and gift boxes, her heterochromatic eyes filled with shock and bewilderment.
Outside the door, the once spacious and bright corridor was now almost completely filled with various gifts!
Piled from the floor to the ceiling, barely leaving a narrow gap for one person to squeeze through sideways. The gifts were diverse: a Mondstadt-style gem scabbard, a Liyue tea caddy that looked expensive, Sumeru incense emitting a faint fragrance, and even rare caviar with a Watatsumi Island logo on the packaging... It was as if all the high-end shops from every nation in Teyvat had been moved here!
And behind the mountain of gifts, Clorinde stood ramrod straight.